Twice this week people shared sacred moments that included mantra blessings, prayer words they repeated to themselves, quietly, in their hearts. Both were women who have faced great suffering. Both know what it is like to have nothing else but an invisible presence to depend on. And both had found their own separate ways to invoke that presence with healing mantras.

After sharing their stories of loss, and longing, and breaking, and slowly beginning to recover through a quiet healing power within them, they each described what it was like to say their own private words of self-blessing. I was touched by the sincerity of their stories and their dependence on something so seemingly small and inadequate: words.

But both of them spoke about the empowerment they found in their mantra blessings. Theirs was not the kind of empowerment that makes for super-heroes, conquering warriors, or comic book figures brought to life in the movies. They both described power as more like a trickling stream flowing into them in their hour of need. They both told how they had known those too-long nights of feeling powerless to mend brokenness. And then those healing words came to mind and they would repeat them inwardly. Apparently, simple mantra blessings can help people find Enough, just when they need it most.

I wanted to share one of the mantra blessings with you as an example of what is gifting someone through a really hard time. Perhaps it will fit your own need. Or perhaps these words will bring to mind other words that better speak to your need. I pass them along in hopes that the contemplative practice of mantra blessings might work their way down into a place in your own being where healing is needed. May they bring you the light, and love, and power you need.

The Light of God surrounds me. The Love of God enfolds me. The power of God protects me. Wherever I am God is, and I am safe and secure. The Power of God through me blesses and multiplies all that I am, all that I give, and all that I receive.

For more stories like this see Monks in the World: Seeking God in a Frantic Culture, now available as a Kindle book.

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About soulcare4u

I am the author of Monks in the World: Seeking God in a Frantic World, published by Wipf & Stock and available through Amazon.com; and of a blog on Wordpress.com, "A Contemplative Path." I serve as the founding spiritual director of The School for Contemplative Living (www.thescl.net), adjunct faculty of Loyola University, and as a pastoral counselor and spiritual director in private practice.